THE SPUR.
A month passed.
During that thirty-day period she received a brief note from Bill.
Just a few lines to say:
Hit the ranch yesterday, little person. Looks good to me. Have had
Lauer do some work on it this summer. Went fishing last night about
sundown. Trout were rising fine. Nailed a two-pounder. He jumped a
foot clear of the water after my fly, and gave me a hot time for about
ten minutes. Woke up this morning at daylight and found a buck deer
with two lady friends standing in the middle of the clearing. I loafed
a fews days in Fort George, sort of thinking I might hear from you. Am
sending this out by Jake. Will start for the Klappan about day after
to-morrow.
She had not answered his first letter. She had tried to. But somehow
when she tried to set pen to paper the right words would not come. She
lacked his facility of expression. There was so much she wanted to
say, so little she seemed able to say. As the days passed she felt
less sure of her ground, less sure that she had not sacrificed
something precious to a vagary of self, an obsession of her own ego.
Many things took on a different complexion now that she stood alone.
No concrete evidence of change stood forth preëminent. It was largely
subjective, atmospheric, intangible impressions.
Always with a heart sinking she came back to the empty apartment,
knowing that it would be empty. During Bill's transient absence of the
spring she had missed him scarcely at all. She could not say that now.
And slowly but surely she began to view all her activities of her
circle with a critical eye. She was brought to this partly in
self-defense. Certain of her friends had become tentative enemies.
Kitty Brooks and the Bray womenfolk, who were a numerous and
influential tribe, not only turned silent faces when they met, but they
made war on her in the peculiar fashion of women. A word here, a
suggestive phrase there, a shrug of the shoulders. It all bore fruit.
Other friends conveyed the avid gossip. Hazel smiled and ignored it.
But in her own rooms she raged unavailingly.
Her husband had left her. There was a man in the case. They had lost
everything. The first count was sufficiently maddening because it was
a half truth. And any of it was irritating--even if few
believed--since it made a choice morsel to digest in gossipy corners,
and brought sundry curious stares on Hazel at certain times. Also Mr.
Wagstaff had caused the stockholders of Free Gold a heavy loss--which
was only offset by the fact that the Free Gold properties were
producing richly. None of this was even openly flung at her. She
gathered it piecemeal. And it galled her. She could not openly defend
either Bill or herself against the shadowy scandalmongers.
Slowly it dawned upon her, with a bitterness born of her former
experience with Granville, that she had lost something of the standing
that certain circles had accorded her as the wife of a successful
mining man. It made her ponder. Was Bill so far wrong, after all, in
his estimate of them? It was a disheartening conclusion. She had come
of a family that stood well in Granville; she had grown up there; if
life-time friends blew hot and cold like that, was the game worth
playing?
In so far as she could she gave the lie to some of the petty gossip.
Whereas at first she had looked dubiously on spending Bill's money to
maintain the standard of living they had set up, she now welcomed that
deposit of five thousand dollars as a means to demonstrate that even in
his absence he stood behind her financially--which she began to
perceive counted more than anything else. So long as she could dress
in the best, while she could ride where others walked, so long as she
betrayed no limitation of resources, the doors stood wide. Not what
you are, but what you've got--she remembered Bill saying that was their
holiest creed.
It repelled her. And sometimes she was tempted to sit down and pour it
all out in a letter to him. But she could not quite bring herself to
the point. Always behind Bill loomed the vast and dreary Northland,
and she shrank from that.
On top of this, she began to suffer a queer upset of her physical
condition. All her life she had been splendidly healthy; her body a
perfect-working machine, afflicted with no weaknesses. Now odd
spasmodic pains recurred without rhyme or reason in her head, her back,
her limbs, striking her with sudden poignancy, disappearing as suddenly.
She was stretched on the lounge one afternoon wrestling nervously with
a particularly acute attack, when Vesta Lorimer was ushered in.
"You're almost a stranger," Hazel remarked, after the first greetings.
"Your outing must have been pleasant, to hold you so long."
"It would have held me longer," Vesta returned, "if I didn't have to be
in touch with my market. I could live quite happily on my island eight
months in the year. But one can't get people to come several hundred
miles to a sitting. And I feel inclined to acquire a living income
while my vogue lasts."
"You're rather a wilderness lover, aren't you?" Hazel commented. "I
don't think you'd love it as dearly if you were buried alive in it."
"That would all depend on the circumstances," Vesta replied. "One
escapes many disheartening things in a country that is still
comparatively primitive. The continual grind of keeping one's end up
in town gets terribly wearisome. I'm always glad to go to the woods,
and sorry when I have to leave. But I suppose it's largely in one's
point of view."
They chatted of sundry matters for a few minutes.
"By the way, is there any truth in the statement that this Free Gold
row has created trouble between you and your husband?" Vesta asked
abruptly. "I dare say it's quite an impertinent question, and you'd be
well within your rights to tell me it's none of my business. But I
should like to confound some of these petty tattlers. I haven't been
home forty-eight hours; yet I've heard tongues wagging. I hope there's
nothing in it. I warned Mr. Wagstaff against Paul."
"Warned him? Why?" Hazel neglected the question entirely. The
bluntness of it took her by surprise. Frank speech was not a
characteristic of Vesta Lorimer's set.
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"He is my brother, but that doesn't veil my eyes," she said coolly.
"Paul is too crooked to lie straight in bed. I'm glad Mr. Wagstaff
brought the lot of them up with a round turn--which he seems to have
done. If he had used a club instead of his fists it would have been
only their deserts. I suppose the fuss quite upset you?"
"It did," Hazel admitted grudgingly. "It did more than upset me."
"I thought as much," Vesta said slowly. "It made you inflict an
undeserved hurt on a man who should have had better treatment at your
hands; not only because he loves you, but because he is one of the few
men who deserve the best that you or any woman can give."
Hazel straightened up angrily.
"Where do you get your astonishing information, pray?" she asked hotly.
"And where do you get your authority to say such things to me?"
Vesta tucked back a vagrant strand of her tawny hair. Her blue eyes
snapped, and a red spot glowed on each smooth, fair cheek.
"I don't get it; I'm taking it," she flung back. "I have eyes and
ears, and I have used them for months. Since you inquire, I happened
to be going over the Lake Division on the same train that carried your
husband back to the North. You can't knife a man without him bearing
the marks of it; and I learned in part why he was going back alone.
The rest I guessed, by putting two and two together. You're a silly,
selfish, shortsighted little fool, if my opinion is worth having."
"You've said quite enough," Hazel cried. "If you have any more
insults, please get rid of them elsewhere. I think you are--"
"Oh, I don't care what you think of me," the girl interrupted
recklessly. "If I did I wouldn't be here. I'd hide behind the
conventional rules of the game and let you blunder along. But I can't.
I'm not gifted with your blind egotism. Whatever you are, that Bill of
yours loves you, and if you care anything for him, you should be with
him. I would, if I were lucky enough to stand in your shoes. I'd go
with him down into hell itself gladly if he wanted me to!"
"Oh!" Hazel gasped. "Are you clean mad?"
"Shocked to death, aren't you?" Vesta fleered. "You can't understand,
can you? I love him--yes. I'm not ashamed to own it. I'm no
sentimental prude to throw up my hands in horror at a perfectly natural
emotion. But he is not for me. I dare say I couldn't give him an
added heartbeat if I tried. And I have a little too much
pride--strange as it may seem to you--to try, so long as he is chained
hand and foot to your chariot. But you're making him suffer. And I
care enough to want him to live all his days happily. He is a man, and
there are so few of them, real men. If you can make him happy I'd
compel you to do so, if I had the power. You couldn't understand that
kind of a love. Oh, I could choke you for your stupid disloyalty. I
could do almost anything that would spur you to action. I can't rid
myself of the hopeless, reckless mood he was in. There are so few of
his kind, the patient, strong, loyal, square-dealing men, with a
woman's tenderness and a lion's courage. Any woman should be proud and
glad to be his mate, to mother his children. And you--"
She threw out her hands with a sudden, despairing gesture. The blue
eyes grew misty, and she hid her face in her palms. Before that
passionate outburst Hazel sat dumbly amazed, staring, uncertain. In a
second Vesta lifted her head defiantly.
"I had no notion of breaking out like this when I came up," she said
quietly. "I was going to be very adroit. I intended to give you a
friendly boost along the right road, if I could. But it has all been
bubbling inside me for a long time. You perhaps think it very
unwomanly--but I don't care much what you think. My little heartache
is incidental, one of the things life deals us whether we will or not.
But if you care in the least for your husband, for God's sake make some
effort, some sacrifice of your own petty little desires, to make his
road a little pleasanter, a little less gray than it must be now.
You'll be well repaid--if you are the kind that must always be paid in
full. Don't be a stiff-necked idiot. That's all I wanted to say.
Good-by!"
She was at the door when she finished. The click of the closing catch
stirred Hazel to speech and action.
"Vesta, Vesta!" she cried, and ran out into the corridor.
But Vesta Lorimer neither heeded nor halted. And Hazel went back to
her room, quivering. Sometimes the truth is bitter and stirs to wrath.
And mingled with other emotions was a dull pang of jealousy--the first
she had ever known. For Vesta Lorimer was beautiful beyond most women;
and she had but given ample evidence of the bigness of her soul. With
shamed tears creeping to her eyes, Hazel wondered if _she_ could love
even Bill so intensely that she would drive another woman to his arms
that he might win happiness.
But one thing stood out clear above that painful meeting. She was done
fighting against the blankness that seemed to surround her since Bill
went away. Slowly but steadily it had been forced upon her that much
which she deemed desirable, even necessary, was of little weight in the
balance with him. Day and night she longed for him, for his cheery
voice, the whimsical good humor of him, his kiss and his smile.
Indubitably Vesta Lorimer was right to term her a stiff-necked, selfish
fool. But if all folk were saturated with the essence of wisdom--well,
there was but one thing to be done. Silly pride had to go by the
board. If to face gayly a land she dreaded were the price of easing
his heartache--and her own--that price she would pay, and pay with a
grace but lately learned.
She lay down on the lounge again. The old pains were back. And as she
endured, a sudden startling thought flashed across her mind. A
possibility?--Yes. She hurried to dress, wondering why it had not
before occurred to her, and, phoning up a taxi, rolled downtown to the
office of Doctor Hart. An hour or so later she returned. A picture of
her man stood on the mantel. She took it down and stared at it with a
tremulous smile.
"Oh, Billy-boy, Billy-boy, I wish you knew," she whispered. "But I was
coming, anyway, Bill!"
That evening, stirring about her preparations for the journey, she
paused, and wondered why, for the first time since Bill left, she felt
so utterly at peace.